Karnataka Congress working president Ramalinga Reddy on Friday accused the ruling BJP of gerrymandering the creation of 243 municipal wards in Bengaluru ahead of the city civic body elections.
The state government on Thursday notified a draft delimitation report increasing the number of BBMP wards from 198 to 243.
“The delimitation exercise happened in the offices of the BJP, Keshava Krupa (RSS), MPs and MLAs. The BBMP chief commissioner simply signed off on the report,” Reddy, a former minister in charge of Bengaluru affairs, alleged at a news conference here.
According to Reddy, it was the Bengaluru Urban deputy commissioner who handled the delimitation exercise earlier. “This time, it was a committee headed by the chief commissioner. The revenue officers, assistant revenue officers and tax inspectors used to fix ward boundaries as per guidelines. But this time, no officer knew what was happening,” he said.
The draft delimitation report, the Congress leader said, is fraught with ambiguity on the new ward boundaries. “In the BTM Layout assembly constituency that I represent, there are nine wards, but I can’t understand the boundaries,” he said. “We won’t know the exact boundaries until we get the hard copy of the report.”
The notification of the draft ward delimitation report is expected to pave the way for BBMP elections to be held early October. Bengaluru has been without an elected city council since September 2020.
Reddy said the number of wards under BJP-ruled assembly constituencies has gone up. “The BJP assumes that they can win by having a higher number of wards,” he said, adding that the “wind is blowing in the Congress’ favour”.
(Published 24 June 2022, 12:50 IST)
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